Proudly Disunited

By Jirair Tutunjian

 

How is Armenia’s Parliament like cheese?

General Charles de Gaulle famously said: “How can you govern a nation that has two-hundred and forty-six different kind of cheese?”

Proving to the uninterested world that it is a genuine, 24-carat democracy, Armenia boasts 125 registered political parties. We haven’t checked, but this could be a way to sneak into the Guinness Book of World Records.

There are at least twelve Armenian political parties with the words unity, united, union, unified.

There are pro-Europe parties and pro-Russian parties. There is even a party called the European Party of Armenia. There are two parties which are apparently nostalgic for the good old days of Soviet Armenia. Their names? Armenian Communist Party and United Communist Party of Armenia. Also nostalgic for the crooked days of Robert Kocharian is his Armenian Alliance while Serge Sargsyan’s heads the sardonically  named Have Honor Alliance.

Then there is the Apricot Country Party, the unintentionally ironic Mighty Fatherland Party, the wishful Orinants Yergir, the optimistic Bright Armenia, the imaginative Prosperous Armenia, the mysterious ORO Alliance, Sasna Dzrer, Dignity Democracy Motherland, the mysteriously named Hayazn, and the Tseghagron Party. The last one has been accused of racism. Its saint is warrior-politician-right wing hero-idiologue Karekin Njteh.

Needless to say, the political power of most of the above hovers below zero degrees.

Then there is the tangle of Armenian Democratic Liberty Party– not to be confused with the Democratic Party of Armenia or the Armenian Liberal Party.

Most of the above have fewer members of parliament than one has fingers on one’s left or right hands.

Lording over this lunacy is the emotionally-disturbed dictator manqué and Recep Erdogan fan Nikol Pashinyan who in his missionary days sported an apostolic beard but now has a glowing, Nivea-smeared cheeks: he wants to look like a European diplomat.

Whenever anti-Pashinyan forces in the Diaspora and in Armenia discuss the ridiculous-to-dire condition of democracy in Armenia and their fear the born-again Shiny Face might be re-elected in June, they conclude the only way to prevent the return to power of the sniveling, Uriah Heep, tin-pot dictator is to unite.

But will the 125 political parties unite—in the upcoming elections—to topple the insufferable Pashinyan and send him into exile or will continue to be bench warmers as they collect their salaries and bonuses?

The Turkbeijan dictators have given their Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to Pashinyan. Maybe that will telegraph a message to the lazybones of the Armenian Parliament.

Nikol derives from Nike—the Greek god of victory. Let Armenian parliamentarians prove that Pashinyan is not entitled to his first name.